cRPG

cRPG => Suggestions Corner => Topic started by: Joker86 on November 30, 2011, 09:53:59 pm

Title: Basic game imbalances
Post by: Joker86 on November 30, 2011, 09:53:59 pm

Basic imbalances of the game

Hi there!

First things first: this is not another whine thread, if anything it's the opposite.

I want to elaborate basic game mechanics, different relations between the classes and perhaps, if I don't write some bullshit here, this could make us all together see some new ways to improve the balance of the game.


"Counters"


First of all I want to start talking about a sentence that often drops: "But XYZ is the natural counter to ZYX!". In my eyes cRPG doesn't have any "counters", neither soft nor hard. A counter always implies that it's designed that way, which is wrong IMHO.Usually, if you design with counters, you have a closed circle, which looks like this:

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It's the famour rock-paper-siccors-system (RPSS). Everyone knows it, and it works very well.But cRPG bases on Mount & Blade, which bases on medieval warfare. And in medieval warfare noone took care that you could beat another weapon with yours, but also could be beaten well by a third one. You wanted a weapon that beats everything. You wanted to play rock-paper-siccors-shotgun.

Just as example: heavy cavalry wasn't meant to be beatable by anything, and for many hundred years it wasn't. Unlike the common belief it was not the firearm, but the disciplined infantry blocks with long polearms that initiated the descent of knighthood.

"But there we have it!" You could shout. Infantry beats cavalry, then cavalry beats archers, and thus the logical consequence would be that archers must beat infantry.

It would look this way:

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But as you can see on the question mark in the middle: does it work this way? Yes and no. Sometimes it does, in most cases it does not.

First of all we have way more classes than those 3 basic ones. Although cRPG is a game without class restrictions, you still have basic fighter types. This is what I found:

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Again we have a question mark in the middle, simply because you couldn't see anything any more if I really drew a line from every class to all other classes.

And here we stumple across our first problem: in every working RPSS you have the same amount of beaten things and beating things. I this requirement isn't met we have an imbalance, because there will be something that wins against more things than it loses.

But let's compare a poor pikeman (my favourite example for an underdog) with a horse archer (my favourite example for a my old friendgo.. I mean, versatile fighter ;-) ).

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I think it's obvious that the chances aren't distributed evenly, and indeed the horse archer can fight more enemies on the battle field, and he can fight them better. This is the first basic imbalance of the game, and I fear this one can never be evened out totally.

Participation


Then we have another basic imbalance, concerning the classes. For this imbalance it's enough to get back to our system with the three classes, which means infantry, archers and cavalry.

cRPG is a game, and we all play it. But WHEN exactly are you playing it? While spectating and waiting for respawn? Well, a little bit, I would say. While running around the battle field? Well, that's already better. While attacking an enemy, expecting him (or yourself) to die any moment? Yes, that's it. cRPG is not a Tycoon-game, it's not about building something, it's about fighting and killing others. That's what you want to do, it's the ultimative goal of the game.

Now let's have a look: WHEN do you fight someone?

As infantryman you fight someone when he approaches you, or you approach him. You have to walk, and you are slow. So you need to become faster.

That's why you put a horse under your butt and become cavalryman. This way you can inevitably reach anyone who hasn't got a (faster) horse himself or is hiding in a building. Which usually is most of the population on a server.

But the best method is to not even have to reach an enemy. So you decide to fight over range. You become archer, crossbowman, or perhaps thrower. What does this mean?

Let me try to show in a table WHEN you can attack WHOME:

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You read the table as follows:
Read it in the three lines "Infantry" "Cavalry" and "Archers", on the very left column. Reading from left to right shows you possible targets depending on the time on the map. Each time section is divided into the three possible enemy classes.

So the first line would be read as:

(click to show/hide)

After spawning infantry can't attack anyone (all three boxes are red). In the early game it can only attack cavalry, if it allows to do so (= approaches), its box is orange. The infantry still can't attack anyone else, so the other boxes are red. In the middle of the game, when the two forces clash, infantry can attack enemy infantry under fair conditions. It can barely attack archers, unless they allow it by approaching too closely, and they can barely attack cavalry, as it needs to do the same. At the end of the game infantry can attack other infantry at even chances, while the chances of infantry reaching an archer and killing him in melee should be about the same as the chances killing the infantry during the approach or after this in melee. Due to the superior speed of the cavalry latter still has an advantage over infantry.

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This table is really rudimentary, and it shows only the majority of all cases on an average map. OF COURSE there can be different situations, but we are trying to get a picture of the whole thing, so this should do the job. For all of those who don't agree with a certain colour in a certain box, here is my reasoning:

(click to show/hide)

INFANTRY:

Spawn: While spawning you can't attack any enemies, as they are way too far away from you.
Early game: In an early game you can only attack cavalry, under the condition that it's attacking you. So it's rather "defending against" cavalry than really attacking. You are moving, and you have to look arround constantly, so you are lacking overview, at least a bit.
Mid game: You can attack enemy infantry as well as they can attack you. Archers are more difficult to attack, as you must break through the enemy infantry and usually they took a good position, so in most cases the archers must be very close to you to be attackable, which means he "allowed" you to attack him. Cavalry again is most dangerous now, as you are fighting enemy infantry now, so they can ride by, attack you and disappear again before you even know what has hit you. So again you can fight them rather bad.
End game: Usually at the end of a game chances are even between all fighters, although cavalry got an advantage due to its mobility.

CAVALRY:

Spawn: Same as infantry. You can't attack anyone.
Early game: if you rush forward, you can attack the advancing enemies, but the archers will most likely concentrate on you, while your chances against other cavalry are about even. infantry can only attack you when you approach them, and usually you only do so if they are unaware of you, so in most cases you will have the advantage.
Mid game: again infantry will be disturbed by your own infantry, so there will be a lot of easy (= unaware) targets. Archers will become more of a problem, as they will take safe positions, and many of them will concentrate on cavalry, as the enemies will be covered by your own infantry. Enemy cavalry still remains an equal match.
End game: at the end of the game your chances against cavalry and archers are about the same. Perhaps you hit them first, perhaps they hit you first. And unless you are the last man standing you should still have good chances against infantry, as they can only attack you within a short range, and only if you decide to approach them.


ARCHERS:

Spawn: Often enough you spawn with enemies on sight. So on many maps you can immediately start attacking, but the enemy archers can attack you, too!
Early game: The enemy infantry will still be approaching, so you can shoot them as you like, they can't do much about it. Enemy cavalry could be riding around, so you will probably watch out for them an engage them, while they will try to engage you as well. Your chances against enemy archers are equal, as you both have the same conditions.
Mid game: Now you have taken a safe position and stopped moving, you most of the time you will be rather aware of your sorroundings. Your infantry is protecting you, so you need to come really close or be rather unaware to be attacked by some Ninja. Due to your good position cavalry will be less of a threat, so you can engage them freely as they circle around the battle.
End game: Now this is more dangerous, as you won't have a line of infantry protecting you any more. Also you will be driven out of your position most likely. Now your chances against everyone should be about equal. Perhaps you hit them first, berhaps they hit you first.

As you can see on the legend, every colour has its own "value". This value can be named whatever you want, versatility, fun, participated time...

If you add the values of each line and calculate the averages, you get the following results:

Infantry: 0,83
Cavalry: 1,67
Archers: 2,67

As you can see, the values, WHEN you can attack WHOME and how WELL differ drastically. Of course you can't take those numbers as absolute values, because archers surely are not three times as effective/fun/whatever as infantry, but it's clear that there are heavy differences. I think arguing about particular boxes in on this table wouldn't change anything on the "ranking".


So what we can comprehend from this section is, that different classes can participate in the battle at different degrees.


But that's not everything!

Controls

Not only how much and how well you can participate is important, also the fact how difficult it is. It's a question of the needed controls for your toon. I could make another table, but I decided to spare you and instead I will try to keep it short:


While infantry needs to approach an enemy in melee, block his blows manually, while he can block yours, both fighters trying to dodge and get around each other (= footwork), with the constant danger of being shot or ridden down, I think it is the most difficult class to control.

As archers don't need to be in melee at all, and most of the time indeed are not, the entire part with manual blocking falls away. The footwork remains, as you need to dodge the projectiles of enemy archers. Compared to the infantry the enemy can do less about your attacks, because only shields and dodging work, but no parrying. You can still be ridden or shot down. Aiming is added, as you need experience and instinct to hit an enemy. But if I compare the removed melee with the added aiming I say that under the line archer needs much less control inputs.

Cavalry doesn't need footwork at all, you constantly press W, correct the direction with A or D and sometimes slow down with S. From time to time you jump over obstacles. This can't really be called foot"work". Same counts for attacking. It's no realy melee, you chamber your blow, approach the enemy in high speed, release in the right moment and are gone before a real duel can even start. Sometimes you will hit something, sometimes you won't. You can still be shot, but not ridden down. Similar to the archer you need to be aware of enemy cavalry and archers, but not really of enemy infantry. All in all I would say cavalry needs the least control inputs.


Of course controls don't tell everything about how "difficult" a class is, but they definitely play an important role. In my eyes it is riskier to approach an enemy and kill him in melee than to shoot him from distance. I think modern tactitians would agree on that ;-)

Another important point is, what player THINK is easier. It doesn't matter how it is in reality, but most players should be afraid of manual blocking, and most of them should think it's easier to become a master archer with good aiming rather than a master infantryman with good blocking skills.


Now let's examine another possible source of imbalance in the game: the needed equipment!


Equipment prices

Infantry needs good armour and good weapons to be effective. Cavalry needs the same, plus a horse. Archers need a good weapon to be effective, while good (= heavier) armour would actually lower their effectivity again.

Of course the other two classes are slowed down by heavy armour, too, but the effects are nowhere near to the effect to archers.

Currently the most expensive Bow + Arrows cost 16.158 gold. The most expensive polearm is 15.634 gold, the most expensive two hander 18.777 gold, the most expensive sword + shield combo is even 20.856 gold. And in difference to the archers the other classes need medium or heavy armour, while archers do fine with light or even without armour at all!

Cavalry has really a disadvantage compared to infantry, as it needs the same equipment plus a horse, which renders only light cavalry sustainable.

Skills?

Another point, where I really don't dare to make a judgement are the skills. I am not sure if the amount of skills needed for each class is balanced or not, so perhaps one of you could elaborate this. I got the feeling it is pretty fair, but not perfect.

Summary

You can rejoice, we are close to the end of my elaboration. Let me post a last, short summary, which simultaneously represents

the tl;dr - version:

1. There is no (real) rock-paper-siccors-system in cRPG. Real "counters" don't exist in the initial meaning of the word, you only have things that work better or worse against others, but there is no balance in those relations.

2. Different classes can participate in the battle at different degrees (time, possible targets, etc.). Some more, some less.

3. The different classes need a different amount of control inputs, which definitely influences the "difficulty" of a class.

4. Different classes need different budgets for effective equipment. Great source for possible imbalances.

5. Different classes need different amounts of skill points spent. Another source for possible imbalances.


With these statements made my essay is more or less finished. I thought long about it, and I finally decided to bother you with my old alternative suggestion which was meant as alternative for the upkeep system, and again I see some advantages of it, so I will repeat it in a heavily shortened version.

Approach to a solution


Basically you can divide character development into two aspects: skills and equipment. You can use these aspects to represent two axes in a graph:

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Of course character's can't move along those axes endlessly, there are caps. Sooner or later you will reach the maximum equipment possible, and, depending on the cap, the level, too.

With the old cRPG things looked like this:

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The equipment was hard capped, as sooner or later you have farmed all of the best equipment you need for your class. Any further progression since then was made on the horizontal axis, by leveling up. There was some kind of soft cap, but we had many players that crossed it. The bright blue area is the potential a player could reach, and the more far away from (0|0) they are, the bigger the square is they create, the more powerful they are. Of course everyone tried to reach the point at the top right, so ultimatively everyone ended up at the same point.

It looked like this:

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As you can see, the different player (the coloured boxes) were all apporaching the top right corner, and when they reached the hard euipment cap they moved along the skill axis, leveling up their characters. Your either had "perfect" characters, or you were working on one. (the smaller boxes that didn't reach one cap yet).


Then the upkeep patch came. Its biggest difference was, that the hard equipment cap was moved lower and changed to a soft one. Now it was the price of your items, that represented the cap, instead of the mere unexistance of better equipment. But still, things remained more or less the same. Again you first farmed the best possible equipment (determined by the combined price in relation to the effectivity), and then you work on breaking the level cap. Characters of same classes developed the same.

The new potential looks like this:

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Basically like before, with some small changes (lower equipment cap, changed to a soft one).

So again leveling looks like this:

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Again it's the best to try to reach the top right corner. Again you have many similar builds.


Balancing is done by changing item stats, balancing the different classes by their equipment. The only balancing by skills was achieved by changing the difficulty of an item. I think this is where we need to start, as you could also use the skills to balance classes.

Another problem are the item prices, which becomes especially obvious in the case of archers. You can't make bows as expensive as it would be needed, as players would need to long to farm them and thus lose motivation. An important part of the motivation of cRPG is buying and using new items, so we must allow players to constantly "reward" themselves by buying items, while taking care that their usage on the battlefield is always balanced.

The only solution I found for this was to seperate the item price in the shop and the item value on the battlefield. This is why I will start now to use the expressions "price" and "value" with two different meanings deliberately.

The price is what you pay on the webside in the shop while purchasing an item. The value is the amount of gold that's shown in your ingame inventory, with absolutely the same mechanics like in native. If your overall equipment value exceeds your budget, the number will turn red and you can't spawn/spawn without some items. You can call this budget "prosperity" or "wealth" or whatever.

Your wealth is a fix number determined by your level. Every new level your wealth grows a little bit. Additionally we need a hard level cap introduced.

An important new feature would be the ability, to turn both skill and attribute points to wealth points. The relation stays the same, which means 2 budget points = 2 skill points = 1 attribute point.

With this system, the new conditions for character development would look like this:
(Notice that the soft level cap on the right side is a mistake, it's a hard one)

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The maximum development line (it's actually a radius) is created by the simple fact that you can either maximize equipment OR skills, but never both, creating some kind of "quarter circle" around (0|0).

Creating a potential that looks this way:

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(There you see this quarter circle)


Basically players would have the same problem like with the upkeep system: "What is the best equipment I can get for a certain value?", but in difference to the upkeep this value would remain constant, thus making your character development more predictable. If someone wants better equipment he is free to do so, but he will have to pay it with worse skills. With this change, the different characters would hopefully look like this:

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You would have both more possibilities and more variety.

To finally achieve some kind of balancing, I would suggest to remove any penalties of respeccing the characters, and heirloom points should be freely distributable. You could implement some cooldown timer or gold cost to prevent players of testing all builds within an afternoon and losing motivation due to this.

The purpose of this change is having the player base adapt much faster to balance changes, so that you can see within a week where the server population would develop to with the current item stats. Once a good balance is achieved, the changes above get reverted, respeccing costs XP again and heirlooms remain final, as usual.

My idea surely doesn't solve all problems, but at least the effects of Nr. 4 and Nr. 5 (see above, "Summary") get lowered.

I hope I don't get too many "tl;dr", because in fact i don't care who didn't read it. I want you guys to correct me if I said/assumed something wrong, and I want you to think about what I wrote, to decide whether you support it or not, and if not, whether you have an alternative/superior suggestion or not. Feel free to discuss every little point, I will do my best to try to stay open minded. I know ofen enough I behave simple minded, and this can become really tiresome for you, but this time I will really try to accept different opinions and allow people to convince me of their beliefs.  :mrgreen:

Title: Re: Basic game imbalances
Post by: RandomDude on November 30, 2011, 10:21:51 pm

Holy shit. I might actually read your post when i have a spare hour or two. For now I skipped to the conclusion and still didnt understand the point of it :(

Title: Re: Basic game imbalances
Post by: Paul on November 30, 2011, 11:05:57 pm

tl;dr archery OP, cav easymode but ok (cause he's a pikeman), inf is for real men

Title: Re: Basic game imbalances
Post by: Joker86 on November 30, 2011, 11:18:18 pm

Quote from: Paul on November 30, 2011, 11:05:57 pm

tl;dr archery OP, cav easymode but ok (cause he's a pikeman), inf is for real men

Impressive how someone can disqualify oneself from a discussion in only 1 sentence.

I never said archery would be OP. All I said was, that it has the better starting conditions, which you have to take into concern.

I didn't say cav was easymode either. All I said was that it is not threatened as much as infantry, and the controls are easier. Doesn't mean that the game with the current balance automatically lets you be successfull because of this.

And finally, I am 2hd inf, no pikeman.

Unfortunately I can even understand how you got the impression this is another "OMG look how unbalanced everything is"-thread, because that's what you usually read in these forums. But I didn't say anything about CURRENT BALANCE PROBLEMS, I was speaking about BASIC GAME IMBALANCES, which, if I think properly about it, all derive from the fact that Mount & Blade simulates medieval warfare. Which wasn't balanced at all.

Compared with those starting conditions the current balance is much much MUCH better, but still needs improvement. This is what this topic is about, it shows WHY some classes should be buffed/nerfed more/differently than others, but not HOW. If you are not aware of the basic game mechanics, you can't solve the basic problem.

Title: Re: Basic game imbalances
Post by: cmp on November 30, 2011, 11:23:54 pm

ITT: Joker trying to peddle his opinions as facts. Make your own mod/game already, goddamnit.

Title: Re: Basic game imbalances
Post by: Joker86 on November 30, 2011, 11:25:09 pm

Quote from: cmpxchg8b on November 30, 2011, 11:23:54 pm

ITT: Joker trying to peddle his opinions as facts. Make your own mod/game already, goddamnit.

Show me where I do this (and I bet I do, often I did not have anything else to base on than personal perception), and I will think about it.

Title: Re: Basic game imbalances
Post by: Son Of Odin on November 30, 2011, 11:29:02 pm

Quote from: RandomDude on November 30, 2011, 10:21:51 pm

Holy shit. I might actually read your post when i have a spare hour or two. For now I skipped to the conclusion and still didnt understand the point of it :(

Are you implying his posts have a point?

Quote from: Vibe on November 30, 2011, 12:09:50 pm

Your posts are just random sentences put together, it makes me want to cut myself

EDIT: But joker, seems like you have used quite a lot of time to write this, so I try to read it. If I start to feel like Vibe I'll have to start searching for some blades :D.

Title: Re: Basic game imbalances
Post by: Joker86 on November 30, 2011, 11:36:19 pm

Quote from: Son Of Odin on November 30, 2011, 11:29:02 pm

But joker, seems like you have used quite a lot of time to write this, so I try to read it. If I start to feel like Vibe I'll have to start searching for some blades :D.

Hope you don't. Generally I don't want people to hurt themselves, neither Vibe nor you (okay, Balton hurting himself would be sweet, I admit), and additionally I hope it wasn't written that confusingly that I let the Emo-community grow even bigger...  :?

Title: Re: Basic game imbalances
Post by: KaMiKaZe_JoE on November 30, 2011, 11:36:41 pm

A OP who put lots of time and effort into creating what he thought was a post, the purpose of which was to prompt pertinent discussion on the topic of several aspects of game imbalance which he, through careful observation, noted?!

Complete with graphs and pictures?!?

I don't have the time to read it--yet--but I will. Why? Because I just finished making a 10 minute presentation for one of my classes. The timing is such that I cannot help but appreciate the good, honest work you put into presenting your own ideas to an audience far less mature and thoughtful than mine, and what's more, you did so on your own initiative.

If you do not read this, or plan on reading it, and do post--particularly in order to condemn the OP--you deserve nothing less than the violent rape of your entire family and/or family pets.

At this point I don't give a fuck if you're completely and utterly wrong Joker--I respect the initiative.

Title: Re: Basic game imbalances
Post by: Kajia on December 01, 2011, 12:16:47 am

Oi! nice effort, +1
joker you seem to waste as much time as I on this mod - yes I said waste. we really should make our own mod, you're in? :D

okay seriously, the stuff you wrote seem to be logical to me.
but I miss the consideration of teamplay - the pike for instance is a supporting weapon, not meant for duelling.

did you read my babbling about strat/crpg balance a while back? the link is in my signature.

Title: Re: Basic game imbalances
Post by: Joker86 on December 01, 2011, 12:19:57 am

Quote from: KaMiKaZe_JoE on November 30, 2011, 11:36:41 pm

[...]

Tanks mate, saved my day  :D

Quote from: Kajia on December 01, 2011, 12:16:47 am

but I miss the consideration of teamplay - the pike for instance is a supporting weapon, not meant for duelling.

You are right on this point, although I think that other classes can play in a team aswell, while they are not as helpless as pikemen when found on their own.

But after taking a look on the servers my answer is:

"You miss the consideration of WHHHAAAAAAAT?"  :wink:

P.S.: I will read into your link.

Title: Re: Basic game imbalances
Post by: Kafein on December 01, 2011, 12:44:43 am

Only a few differences with the giant post you did short after the upkeep patch came out, and as I see most of it still holds true.

Most (good) multiplayer games with evolution force players into making compromises between mutually-conflictual (even exclusive in some cases) parts of character evolution.

The str/agi balance is one perfect example of these good designs. If we assume the attributes are balanced, you achieve diversity without making one choice better than the other. Even better, to make it more exploit-safe, the return of each spent point decreases. That way, even with attribute imbalances, unbalanced builds aren't that good. This is not explicitly done in cRPG, even though we can argue that currently, it's best to have both attributes in the 15-21 range.

However, what really cRPG really lacks is a negative link between equipment and level. Currently, they aren't linked negatively at all (they are linked positively as you need levels to use equipment). You can maximise both without any problem (the "north-east corner"). What could offer more diversity while actually allowing more expensive items to be more effective (unlike now. There are countless examples of expensive stuff being inferior to cheaper stuff) is using a skill for determining the max equipment you can use. Or having to use part of you pay to "train" and being higher level with less gold.

That would introduce more choices during the evolution process. Are you a veteran soldier, or a young noble ?

Title: Re: Basic game imbalances
Post by: Joker86 on December 01, 2011, 01:00:52 am

Quote from: Kafein on December 01, 2011, 12:44:43 am

What could offer more diversity while actually allowing more expensive items to be more effective is using a skill for determining the max equipment you can use.

Well, that's actually what I wanted to achieve with the wealth/item values. You can have a Gothic Plate and a Flamberge, but as it will exceed the basic wealth value of your level, you will have to spend skill or attribute points to be able to wield those items. Which effectively puts you on a lower character level.

Did you mean this?

Quote from: Kafein on December 01, 2011, 12:44:43 am

Or having to use part of you pay to "train" and being higher level with less gold.

That would introduce more choices during the evolution process. Are you a veteran soldier, or a young noble ?

This is basically connected to the wealth-system: you either have good stats and bad equipment (veteran warrior) or vice versa (rich noble), or of course something in between (average professional soldier).

But the point of having to train to access higher levels with gold seems to be interesting to me. I just don't know what I would use as "price" to raise the personal level cap, as gold doesn't seem right to me (just farm, time is on your side). I would like something that actually "hurts", something that lowers your fighting abilities a bit, but the additional level making it still viable, as you gain stronger a little tiny bit. Just make it not well farmable... I think I have to sleep over this one  :D

Title: Re: Basic game imbalances
Post by: Kafein on December 01, 2011, 01:57:01 am

Quote from: Joker86 on December 01, 2011, 01:00:52 am

Well, that's actually what I wanted to achieve with the wealth/item values. You can have a Gothic Plate and a Flamberge, but as it will exceed the basic wealth value of your level, you will have to spend skill or attribute points to be able to wield those items. Which effectively puts you on a lower character level.

Did you mean this?

This is basically connected to the wealth-system: you either have good stats and bad equipment (veteran warrior) or vice versa (rich noble), or of course something in between (average professional soldier).

But the point of having to train to access higher levels with gold seems to be interesting to me. I just don't know what I would use as "price" to raise the personal level cap, as gold doesn't seem right to me (just farm, time is on your side). I would like something that actually "hurts", something that lowers your fighting abilities a bit, but the additional level making it still viable, as you gain stronger a little tiny bit. Just make it not well farmable... I think I have to sleep over this one  :D

Hey, my post was intended to be a tl;dr version of yours :P

By "buying levels with gold", I was assuming that gold was only a balance factor. Once per time unit, you get a fixed sum (salary), you pay your equipment upkeep and any training you were doing. Training requires you to pay a fixed amount each unit of time, to keep the level bonus. This only does exactly the same thing as saying there's a skill that gives you money, but the other way around : with money you can get more skills.

Title: Re: Basic game imbalances
Post by: Skysong on December 01, 2011, 01:58:30 am

Nice effort still:

Quote

1. There is no (real) rock-paper-siccors-system in cRPG. Real "counters" don't exist in the initial meaning of the word, you only have things that work better or worse against others, but there is no balance in those relations.

Reducing everything to rock-paper-siccors  is like a spreading plague among gamers since Sega took over publishing total war series.
Some melees are more offensive while some are supporting. Some has more survival against ranged while others are hunted so.
I'd hate a game when i say "Here is X class i'll kill him easy!" or  "Omg Y class i have no chance, i should lay down and die"
Also suggesting balancing with active atack periods is just wrong. You can't punish archers because they have range atack.

Quote

2. Different classes can participate in the battle at different degrees (time, possible targets, etc.). Some more, some less.

3. The different classes need a different amount of control inputs, which definitely influences the "difficulty" of a class.

Actualy those add variety to gameplay and are alot realistic than vice versa. I'd hate a game where each class had same difficulty to play.

Quote

4. Different classes need different budgets for effective equipment. Great source for possible imbalances.

5. Different classes need different amounts of skill points spent. Another source for possible imbalances.

I agree. Some has too many free skill points to convert to attribute points also.

Title: Re: Basic game imbalances
Post by: Tears of Destiny on December 01, 2011, 02:36:12 am

Honestly I found this to be one of the best presented threads I have read on this forum, and at a glance I like the thoughts it holds. I do need to read it once more, then I should post real feedback.

Just wanted to say splendid work.

Title: Re: Basic game imbalances
Post by: Tomas_of_Miles on December 01, 2011, 02:55:55 am

Actually making your own multiplayer mod isn't hard. What is hard is integrating a browser game and persistent stats and also new several layered dynamic objects.

Title: Re: Basic game imbalances
Post by: ToxicKilla on December 01, 2011, 08:47:28 am

Quote from: Tomas_of_Miles on December 01, 2011, 02:55:55 am

Actually making your own multiplayer mod isn't hard. What is hard is integrating a browser game and persistent stats and also new several layered dynamic objects.

Pfft, I do that in my sleep, infact, that's how cRPG was made, but chadz stole it from me...

Title: Re: Basic game imbalances
Post by: Slamz on December 01, 2011, 12:01:18 pm

So I think the main focus is an idea for changing how the cRPG economy works.

Current:
You get money.  You spend it buying stuff and paying repair costs.  You can equip whatever you want until you run out of repair money.

Suggested:
Same as above except there is a ceiling on how much gear you can equip at a time.  This ceiling is called "wealth".  For example, perhaps your ceiling is 40,000 gold.  That's how much stuff you can equip.  You cannot equip more than that regardless of how much money you have.  "Wealth" points can be converted to skill points and attributes and vice versa so that you are forced to choose: you can have high wealth (full plate, plated charger, top weapons, etc) or you can have high attributes or you can be somewhere in the middle.  You cannot have both high attributes and high wealth.

So, for example, you would be 18/18/18 -- 18 str, 18 agi, 18 wealth.  Middle of the road character, good all around, excels at nothing in particular but has no weaknesses.  Or you could be 28/18/8.  Higher str+agi than would normally be possible but you get it at the expense of wealth, so you can't wear overly good gear.  Or you could be 18/8/28.  Less agility but abnormally high wealth, perhaps for that plated charger build.


The idea is to increase diversity.


Eh.

I would personally label this as "awfully dramatic" at this stage of the mod.  You're talking about a complete upheaval over something I think is not a terrible problem.  It's not like any one "class" is rolling the server, dominating in all things.  There is an element of rock-paper-scissors in play that does work whenever the players don't stubbornly cling to their particular build.

For example, "archers are overpowered".  Suddenly there are more throwers and shielders.  Archers are not so overpowered anymore.  "Cavalry is overpowered".  Suddenly there are more pikes, archers and throwers.  Cavalry is not so overpowered anymore.  Etc.  It's really only a problem when people pigeonhole themselves in a narrow build, like a full STR two-hand build with absolutely no counter to archery or throwing.  They'd rather complain on the forums than adapt their crap build (or crap playstyle) to something more versatile.



One thing you suggested that did have merit, I think, is a freer ability to respec -- both stat points and heirlooms.  I don't see a downside to this.  Let people do a free, complete, 100% respec, including heirloom points, once every 7 days.  More often than that will cost 50% XP per respec as usual.

Most MMORPGs grant complete respecs whenever they do a major patch precisely so people can re-evaluate their character builds and don't find themselves stuck with something they now hate, due to the patch.  It's a good thing and it's something cRPG should allow for as well.  For example, the last patch kinda screwed my build by increasing my armor weight, which messed up my wpf-to-PT ratio for the armor I wear.  I need more wpf now but I'm level 30 and am not inclined to sacrifice half my XP.  I'll just suck it up until level 31 but I shouldn't have to.  People choosing to level past 31 are especially vulnerable to the whims of the devs.

I can't think of a good reason not to allow some free respecs.  Yes it will tend to make people flock to the "flavor of the month" that much faster but if balance is being done well, then there will never be one overly dominant flavor of the month.  (For all the calls of archers being OP I had no desire to respec back to archer.)

Title: Re: Basic game imbalances
Post by: RamsesXXIIX on December 01, 2011, 12:39:02 pm

Now excuse me if you addressed this already, but I was concerned about a couple of things when different classes can attack each other and under what circumstances.

What you seem to miss is the effectiveness of the different classes, as well as a distinction between shielders and the other infantry.

For example: Since an archer can attack very often, his effectiveness with these attacks are rather reduced in comparison to when, say, a twohander attacks. This should be obvious.

As such, I find the use of that table limited.

To further address it, you claim that an archer can (almost) always attack infantry, but I dare to disagree, mainly because of shields. If I have a strong enough shield and don't let myself get outflanked, I am practically invulnerable to an archer. Therefore the archer can not attack me. If we size it up (Multiple shields Vs multiple ranged), terrain starts to be the deciding factor. In an alley the archers would not do the shielders much harm, while in a valley around steep hills they would destroy them.

What i'm trying to say is that the game is too complicated for you to put things into that table and assume anything really - I know you accept this, but you still try to. As such, I have a hard time following your logic.

One more thing: You address the effetiveness of classes versus other classes, but you're only taking out the current classes of the game while neglecting future classes - as such you seem to undermine the community's ability to adapt.

Lets take a classic example: Shielders are more effective against archers than 2hander/swinging poles. As such, according to your system, archers would rape the game if they started to increase in numbers. However, as we saw during some periods of cRPG, the community adapted. The phrase "get a shield" is from these times, as all infantry needed protection against ranged, whether they were 2hander, pole or 1handed.

Furthermore, you neglect hybrids in your system of classes (the very first).

There might be more points for me to address, and if you've already answered some of my points in you post you don't need to answer me now. I'll find them myself.

Finally, very nice enthusiasm :o

Title: Re: Basic game imbalances
Post by: Joker86 on December 01, 2011, 12:52:56 pm

Quote from: SI love youong on December 01, 2011, 01:58:30 am

Reducing everything to rock-paper-siccors  is like a spreading plague among gamers since Sega took over publishing total war series.
Some melees are more offensive while some are supporting. Some has more survival against ranged while others are hunted so.
I'd hate a game when i say "Here is X class i'll kill him easy!" or  "Omg Y class i have no chance, i should lay down and die"

That's a key question about what kind of game cRPG/strat is meant to be.

If you have a more or less viable chance against every other class, you have a much skill based, rather arcade-like game.

If you are very strong against some classes, but very weak against others, you have something different. Teamplay becomes much more important, and you win not by the best skills and fastest reflexes, but with the best tactics.

I would like something in between. Anyway, there is no way we can achieve either of both extremes, just check horse archer vs. 2-hand-infantry, it is clearly a case where the infantry can lay down and die. You NEED the help of other teammates, in this case the ranged fighters. 

Quote from: SI love youong on December 01, 2011, 01:58:30 am

Also suggesting balancing with active atack periods is just wrong. You can't punish archers because they have range atack.

I wouldn't call it punishment if you just consider the fact that they are more variable. I bet most people trying to balance things out would instinctively concern the fact that archers can engage almost anyone at almost any time. That's what ranged fighting is meant to be.

Quote from: SI love youong on December 01, 2011, 01:58:30 am

Actualy those add variety to gameplay and are alot realistic than vice versa. I'd hate a game where each class had same difficulty to play.

I understand what you say, and I agree to a certain degree.

I like the idea of "difficult to master, but once mastered really effective", as it sounds fair to me on the first glance. But if we assume that every player increases his skills playing cRPG, he will sooner or (much more likely) later reach the peak of the possible skills for his class. Now if he has not mastered the "difficult" class, but on of the "easier" ones, and balance is done by the principle of "difficulty=effectivity", then he would be punished to have chosen another class over the most effective one, although he would have the needed skills to also master the most effective one. You know what I am getting at?

Given, that the top players usually try to max out their performance, sooner or later they would all have to switch to this one particular, most difficult class. It would lead to something like "All good players play 2-handed-infantry" (please don't argue about my example  :wink: ), which again is not the idea of free character choice.

Title: Re: Basic game imbalances
Post by: Joker86 on December 01, 2011, 12:54:32 pm

Quote from: Slamz on December 01, 2011, 12:01:18 pm

There is an element of rock-paper-scissors in play that does work whenever the players don't stubbornly cling to their particular build.

For example, "archers are overpowered".  Suddenly there are more throwers and shielders.  Archers are not so overpowered anymore.  "Cavalry is overpowered".  Suddenly there are more pikes, archers and throwers.  Cavalry is not so overpowered anymore.  Etc.  It's really only a problem when people pigeonhole themselves in a narrow build, like a full STR two-hand build with absolutely no counter to archery or throwing.  They'd rather complain on the forums than adapt their crap build (or crap playstyle) to something more versatile.

I get what you want to say. Things are kind of regulating themselves, and you are right about this.

But in my eyes people SHOULD be allowed to stick to the build they like to play with, that's the point of a cRPG without classes or other bigger restrictions.

Most people don't play the class they think the server needs or something like that. I think there are two kinds of people: the opportunistic and the idealistic ones. The opportunists always try to play the currently most effective build, while the idealistic ones stick to the build they like most.

As soon as a new patch is out, and a class gets some buffs, usually the number of players of this class goes up accordingly. It's those opportunists changing to the flavour of the month. And as it is OP in many cases, the rest (= the idealists) suffers from them. Only few players change to the counter of the new buffed class, and it takes quite some time until some kind of balance is reestablished again, and usually that's the point when a new patch comes.

In my eyes a good balance renders this self-regulating system unneeded. When archers are overpowered, people only have to switch to throwers and shielders if they like to, and not because they think they have to do so to at least have a chance on the battlefield. The only way to achieve this is to make all classes about the same strength.

I hope you get what I mean. First we have the basic unbalances I wrote about. Then we have the balancing from the developer, which is meant to change those basic imbalances. And finally we have the adaption by the players, which determines the finaly gameplay on the servers.

[Basic conditions] -> [Balance by developers] -> [Adaption by players]

What I would like to see is, that the second step is done that well, that the third step, "adapting to the balance" is not needed any more.

Title: Re: Basic game imbalances
Post by: Joker86 on December 01, 2011, 01:11:02 pm

Quote from: RamsesXXIIX on December 01, 2011, 12:39:02 pm

What you seem to miss is the effectiveness of the different classes, as well as a distinction between shielders and the other infantry.

[...]

What i'm trying to say is that the game is too complicated for you to put things into that table and assume anything really - I know you accept this, but you still try to. As such, I have a hard time following your logic.

Well, I used the different colours to show the effectiveness, otherwise I would have used only red and green (can't/can attack).

I don't know how this table would have looked like if I made more differences, for example cavalry doesn't contain horse archers who would get totally different colours than ordinary cavalry.

The simplified table was only a matter of practicability, not actual belief.  :?

 

Quote from: RamsesXXIIX on December 01, 2011, 12:39:02 pm

One more thing: You address the effetiveness of classes versus other classes, but you're only taking out the current classes of the game while neglecting future classes - as such you seem to undermine the community's ability to adapt.

I don't know which new classes could be "invented" by the player. The only thing I could imagine would be the implementation of firearms, as I saw someone posting a picture of some model files from the newest patch, showing a primitive handgun.

But still this doesn't matter much, as the only purpose of the picture was to show that a RPSS doesn't work here, due to different relations of "I beat you" and "you beat me" with different classes. (As a reminder: a working RPSS always needs the same amount of beating and beaten things)

And, as I wrote in my posts above yours (I divide them so I can be quoted better, I hope the mods don't kill me :oops: ), I think the need to adapt is some kind of constraint of which I think it doesn't fit to the idea of free character choice and development. So to increase freedom concerning your characters you have to lower the need to adapt to something.

Lets take a classic example: Shielders are more effective against archers than 2hander/swinging poles. As such, according to your system, archers would rape the game if they started to increase in numbers. However, as we saw during some periods of cRPG, the community adapted. The phrase "get a shield" is from these times, as all infantry needed protection against ranged, whether they were 2hander, pole or 1handed.

Furthermore, you neglect hybrids in your system of classes (the very first).

There might be more points for me to address, and if you've already answered some of my points in you post you don't need to answer me now. I'll find them myself.

Finally, very nice enthusiasm :o
[/quote]

Title: Re: Basic game imbalances
Post by: Peasant_Woman on December 01, 2011, 01:26:16 pm

Quote from: Joker86 on December 01, 2011, 12:54:32 pm

[Basic conditions] -> [Balance by developers] -> [Adaption by players]

What I would like to see is, that the second step is done that well, that the third step, "adapting to the balance" is not needed any more.

But then the opportunistic players will play whatever the basic conditions favor. There will be always be slight imbalances and any advantage, no matter how tiny will cause the opportunistic players to take advantage of it. My point is that even if the stats are perfect on paper the outcome of a cRPG battle is far too dependant on other factors which are out of the players hands.

Map design is a big one along with player skill on an individual and teamwork related scale, which ensures that any perceived imbalance is probably more caused by;

1) A bad team (autoimbalancer)
2) A bad map (community needs to offer actual FEEDBACK to mappers. Sadly, most just go 'shit map' and refuse to go into why or offer suggestions to improve them)
3) Bad personal skill (mistakes)

So only once the autobalance no longer favors clan stacking, once every map in the rotation offers something for every class and once we have a very high average skill level for all players can we hope to get any real data on stat imbalances. Balance the basic conditions and then balance by developers will have more meaning.

Title: Re: Basic game imbalances
Post by: Joker86 on December 01, 2011, 01:52:03 pm

Quote from: Peasant_Woman on December 01, 2011, 01:26:16 pm

But then the opportunistic players will play whatever the basic conditions favor. There will be always be slight imbalances and any advantage, no matter how tiny will cause the opportunistic players to take advantage of it.

If the basic conditions are evened out well, and the balance is done that well, that there is as good as no difference between the developer balance and the adaption by the players, even the most opportunistic player should simply shrug and play the class he likes most. I hope so, at least.

Quote from: Peasant_Woman on December 01, 2011, 01:26:16 pm

My point is that even if the stats are perfect on paper the outcome of a cRPG battle is far too dependant on other factors which are out of the players hands.

Map design is a big one along with player skill on an individual and teamwork related scale, which ensures that any perceived imbalance is probably more caused by;

1) A bad team (autoimbalancer)
2) A bad map (community needs to offer actual FEEDBACK to mappers. Sadly, most just go 'shit map' and refuse to go into why or offer suggestions to improve them)
3) Bad personal skill (mistakes)

So only once the autobalance no longer favors clan stacking, once every map in the rotation offers something for every class and once we have a very high average skill level for all players can we hope to get any real data on stat imbalances. Balance the basic conditions and then balance by developers will have more meaning.

I agree wholeheartedly.  :D

This is something important I wanted to come back to, later. The offered maps are a great part of the balance, together with some other stuff like ladders heavily shifting balance between ranged classes and the rest.  :?

Title: Re: Basic game imbalances
Post by: Rusty_Shacklefjord on December 01, 2011, 02:00:34 pm

Great thread, and great idea. I support it 100%.

I think one of the biggest advantages of the system that you're proposing is that it allows players to use the build of their choice, rather than forcing them to grind for gold and use gear that they don't like. It increases diversity and player customization, which is what cRPG is all about.

On the other hand, I'm not sure how this would fit in with weapon stats and difficulty requirements. For example, wouldn't a player high wealth, heavy armor and an expensive weapon play similarly to a player with low wealth, high iron flesh and power strike? It seems like there's little difference between wealth and skill in many cases, since most skills serve primarily to buff the same stats as equipment. Higher IF and stronger armor both buff durability, PS and stronger weapons both buff damage, shield and stronger shields both buff shield HP, riding and better horses both buff handling, ect.

Of course, either way I still think it's better than the upkeep system.

Title: Re: Basic game imbalances
Post by: Slamz on December 01, 2011, 02:04:00 pm

Quote from: Joker86 on December 01, 2011, 12:54:32 pm

The only way to achieve this is to make all classes about the same strength.

I think this is impossible, or at least, I think it's impossible within the context of a semi-realistic medieval setting.

In a fantasy or sci-fi setting, sure, you could do this.  Wizards are too weak against warriors?  Just give them a "Transmute Enemy Armor Into Mass of Horrifying Spiders" spell and now it's all perfectly balanced again.

But in a semi-realistic medieval setting, what do you do to, say, 1H shielders to balance them against cavalry?  (Extra true if he insists on using something like a military hammer.)  He's got a short weapon which is no good for hitting horses and he's got a shield which is worth fuck-all against a cavalry charge.  In a fantasy setting we could give shielders a "Legs of Iron" magical ability that lets them ignore horse bumps when holding their shield up, or maybe even rears the horse, but that's a bit of a stretch for a medieval setting.  Better to just accept that 1H shielders suck against cavalry charges and anyone wanting to be prepared for that will have to pick up a pike or else learn some throwing.

Similarly, how do you make a dedicated 2H morningstar user balanced against archers?  In a fantasy setting we could give the morningstar a "Wings of the Righteous" magical ability that sends the wielder flying at the enemy archer from 20 meters away.  In a realistic setting he just kind of gets shot up and again had better diversify a bit if he wants to pick up some sort of anti-archery ability.



So basically I think what you state is possible, but not without seriously compromising the concept of cRPG:

In reality, a guy with a two-hander facing an archer on an open field is at a pretty serious disadvantage, and cRPG aims to accurately reflect that.  It comes down to teamwork and/or diversifying your build to make it work.  Two two-handers versus two archers might really suck but a two-hander and a shielder versus two archers might work out fine.  You don't need balance on the 1v1 level to have "balance" on the team vs team level.

Title: Re: Basic game imbalances
Post by: Joker86 on December 01, 2011, 02:23:06 pm

There is not a single point I can say something against, as you are totally right.

The reason why I looked at the different classes in "duel" situations is that motivation is experienced by single players.

To make a couter-example which is really extreme, but it serves to show what I mean:

If cRPG will once reach a level of realism really close to reality a new attribute is introduced, called wisdom. You need this wisdom attribute to level up your "siege engineer" skill, so be able to build catapults. Problem: a Trebuchet needs Siege Engineer 10 to be build, but also "siege weapon handling" (another wisdom skill) 5 to be operated. Our siege engineer doesn't have enough points to also operate the trebuchet, and thus he is limited to build it and then to watch the siege, as he has no real fighting capabilities.

With the trebuchet the attackers manage to break the walls and take the castle. Without the others the siege engineer could never have daptured the castle, but without him the other never would have, too. So they are both equally important and thus you have team balance. But I wouldn't call this system balanced from the point of view of the siege engineer.

You also have to balance the "fun" a class is granting, as it is an important aspect for the balancing (determining the percentage of a particular class found on the server, which, in combination with the "natural counters" and weaknesses, determines overall balance, especially concerning the team level).

Title: Re: Basic game imbalances
Post by: ArchonAlarion on December 01, 2011, 07:33:52 pm

M&B/Crpg is better off going the realism/teamwork route imo. It is the path less traveled in game design, so it creates a unique niche and new genre which the game can have a monopoly on for some time. Rock-paper-scissor is basically an anti-teamwork state, and teamwork is becoming more important as multiplayer games rise to the forefront and computer mediation of ptp communication becomes more transparent. As graphics improve and become more realistic, players will increasingly expect the game mechanics to function realistically/consistently.

Something left out of this discussion, but extremely important is the way that map structure and server population affects balance. To achieve a perfect balance you would need to heavily regulate map structure/size and the size of the population within the battles because some weapons, styles, classes, etc. do better under certain conditions than others. That would be bizarre and counter-intuitive, seeing as players should choose tools to adapt to the environment, rather than adapting the environment to fit the tools.

Title: Re: Basic game imbalances
Post by: Lysander on December 02, 2011, 05:32:26 pm

Quote from: Joker86 on November 30, 2011, 09:53:59 pm

Basic imbalances of the game

Hi there!

First things first: this is not another whine thread, if anything it's the opposite.

I want to elaborate basic game mechanics, different relations between the classes and perhaps, if I don't write some bullshit here, this could make us all together see some new ways to improve the balance of the game.


"Counters"


First of all I want to start talking about a sentence that often drops: "But XYZ is the natural counter to ZYX!". In my eyes cRPG doesn't have any "counters", neither soft nor hard. A counter always implies that it's designed that way, which is wrong IMHO.Usually, if you design with counters, you have a closed circle, which looks like this:

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It's the famour rock-paper-siccors-system (RPSS). Everyone knows it, and it works very well.But cRPG bases on Mount & Blade, which bases on medieval warfare. And in medieval warfare noone took care that you could beat another weapon with yours, but also could be beaten well by a third one. You wanted a weapon that beats everything. You wanted to play rock-paper-siccors-shotgun.

Just as example: heavy cavalry wasn't meant to be beatable by anything, and for many hundred years it wasn't. Unlike the common belief it was not the firearm, but the disciplined infantry blocks with long polearms that initiated the descent of knighthood.

"But there we have it!" You could shout. Infantry beats cavalry, then cavalry beats archers, and thus the logical consequence would be that archers must beat infantry.

It would look this way:

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But as you can see on the question mark in the middle: does it work this way? Yes and no. Sometimes it does, in most cases it does not.

First of all we have way more classes than those 3 basic ones. Although cRPG is a game without class restrictions, you still have basic fighter types. This is what I found:

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Again we have a question mark in the middle, simply because you couldn't see anything any more if I really drew a line from every class to all other classes.

And here we stumple across our first problem: in every working RPSS you have the same amount of beaten things and beating things. I this requirement isn't met we have an imbalance, because there will be something that wins against more things than it loses.

But let's compare a poor pikeman (my favourite example for an underdog) with a horse archer (my favourite example for a my old friendgo.. I mean, versatile fighter ;-) ).

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I think it's obvious that the chances aren't distributed evenly, and indeed the horse archer can fight more enemies on the battle field, and he can fight them better. This is the first basic imbalance of the game, and I fear this one can never be evened out totally.

Participation


Then we have another basic imbalance, concerning the classes. For this imbalance it's enough to get back to our system with the three classes, which means infantry, archers and cavalry.

cRPG is a game, and we all play it. But WHEN exactly are you playing it? While spectating and waiting for respawn? Well, a little bit, I would say. While running around the battle field? Well, that's already better. While attacking an enemy, expecting him (or yourself) to die any moment? Yes, that's it. cRPG is not a Tycoon-game, it's not about building something, it's about fighting and killing others. That's what you want to do, it's the ultimative goal of the game.

Now let's have a look: WHEN do you fight someone?

As infantryman you fight someone when he approaches you, or you approach him. You have to walk, and you are slow. So you need to become faster.

That's why you put a horse under your butt and become cavalryman. This way you can inevitably reach anyone who hasn't got a (faster) horse himself or is hiding in a building. Which usually is most of the population on a server.

But the best method is to not even have to reach an enemy. So you decide to fight over range. You become archer, crossbowman, or perhaps thrower. What does this mean?

Let me try to show in a table WHEN you can attack WHOME:

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You read the table as follows:
Read it in the three lines "Infantry" "Cavalry" and "Archers", on the very left column. Reading from left to right shows you possible targets depending on the time on the map. Each time section is divided into the three possible enemy classes.

So the first line would be read as:

(click to show/hide)

After spawning infantry can't attack anyone (all three boxes are red). In the early game it can only attack cavalry, if it allows to do so (= approaches), its box is orange. The infantry still can't attack anyone else, so the other boxes are red. In the middle of the game, when the two forces clash, infantry can attack enemy infantry under fair conditions. It can barely attack archers, unless they allow it by approaching too closely, and they can barely attack cavalry, as it needs to do the same. At the end of the game infantry can attack other infantry at even chances, while the chances of infantry reaching an archer and killing him in melee should be about the same as the chances killing the infantry during the approach or after this in melee. Due to the superior speed of the cavalry latter still has an advantage over infantry.

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This table is really rudimentary, and it shows only the majority of all cases on an average map. OF COURSE there can be different situations, but we are trying to get a picture of the whole thing, so this should do the job. For all of those who don't agree with a certain colour in a certain box, here is my reasoning:

(click to show/hide)

INFANTRY:

Spawn: While spawning you can't attack any enemies, as they are way too far away from you.
Early game: In an early game you can only attack cavalry, under the condition that it's attacking you. So it's rather "defending against" cavalry than really attacking. You are moving, and you have to look arround constantly, so you are lacking overview, at least a bit.
Mid game: You can attack enemy infantry as well as they can attack you. Archers are more difficult to attack, as you must break through the enemy infantry and usually they took a good position, so in most cases the archers must be very close to you to be attackable, which means he "allowed" you to attack him. Cavalry again is most dangerous now, as you are fighting enemy infantry now, so they can ride by, attack you and disappear again before you even know what has hit you. So again you can fight them rather bad.
End game: Usually at the end of a game chances are even between all fighters, although cavalry got an advantage due to its mobility.

CAVALRY:

Spawn: Same as infantry. You can't attack anyone.
Early game: if you rush forward, you can attack the advancing enemies, but the archers will most likely concentrate on you, while your chances against other cavalry are about even. infantry can only attack you when you approach them, and usually you only do so if they are unaware of you, so in most cases you will have the advantage.
Mid game: again infantry will be disturbed by your own infantry, so there will be a lot of easy (= unaware) targets. Archers will become more of a problem, as they will take safe positions, and many of them will concentrate on cavalry, as the enemies will be covered by your own infantry. Enemy cavalry still remains an equal match.
End game: at the end of the game your chances against cavalry and archers are about the same. Perhaps you hit them first, perhaps they hit you first. And unless you are the last man standing you should still have good chances against infantry, as they can only attack you within a short range, and only if you decide to approach them.


ARCHERS:

Spawn: Often enough you spawn with enemies on sight. So on many maps you can immediately start attacking, but the enemy archers can attack you, too!
Early game: The enemy infantry will still be approaching, so you can shoot them as you like, they can't do much about it. Enemy cavalry could be riding around, so you will probably watch out for them an engage them, while they will try to engage you as well. Your chances against enemy archers are equal, as you both have the same conditions.
Mid game: Now you have taken a safe position and stopped moving, you most of the time you will be rather aware of your sorroundings. Your infantry is protecting you, so you need to come really close or be rather unaware to be attacked by some Ninja. Due to your good position cavalry will be less of a threat, so you can engage them freely as they circle around the battle.
End game: Now this is more dangerous, as you won't have a line of infantry protecting you any more. Also you will be driven out of your position most likely. Now your chances against everyone should be about equal. Perhaps you hit them first, berhaps they hit you first.

As you can see on the legend, every colour has its own "value". This value can be named whatever you want, versatility, fun, participated time...

If you add the values of each line and calculate the averages, you get the following results:

Infantry: 0,83
Cavalry: 1,67
Archers: 2,67

As you can see, the values, WHEN you can attack WHOME and how WELL differ drastically. Of course you can't take those numbers as absolute values, because archers surely are not three times as effective/fun/whatever as infantry, but it's clear that there are heavy differences. I think arguing about particular boxes in on this table wouldn't change anything on the "ranking".


So what we can comprehend from this section is, that different classes can participate in the battle at different degrees.


But that's not everything!

Controls

Not only how much and how well you can participate is important, also the fact how difficult it is. It's a question of the needed controls for your toon. I could make another table, but I decided to spare you and instead I will try to keep it short:


While infantry needs to approach an enemy in melee, block his blows manually, while he can block yours, both fighters trying to dodge and get around each other (= footwork), with the constant danger of being shot or ridden down, I think it is the most difficult class to control.

As archers don't need to be in melee at all, and most of the time indeed are not, the entire part with manual blocking falls away. The footwork remains, as you need to dodge the projectiles of enemy archers. Compared to the infantry the enemy can do less about your attacks, because only shields and dodging work, but no parrying. You can still be ridden or shot down. Aiming is added, as you need experience and instinct to hit an enemy. But if I compare the removed melee with the added aiming I say that under the line archer needs much less control inputs.

Cavalry doesn't need footwork at all, you constantly press W, correct the direction with A or D and sometimes slow down with S. From time to time you jump over obstacles. This can't really be called foot"work". Same counts for attacking. It's no realy melee, you chamber your blow, approach the enemy in high speed, release in the right moment and are gone before a real duel can even start. Sometimes you will hit something, sometimes you won't. You can still be shot, but not ridden down. Similar to the archer you need to be aware of enemy cavalry and archers, but not really of enemy infantry. All in all I would say cavalry needs the least control inputs.


Of course controls don't tell everything about how "difficult" a class is, but they definitely play an important role. In my eyes it is riskier to approach an enemy and kill him in melee than to shoot him from distance. I think modern tactitians would agree on that ;-)

Another important point is, what player THINK is easier. It doesn't matter how it is in reality, but most players should be afraid of manual blocking, and most of them should think it's easier to become a master archer with good aiming rather than a master infantryman with good blocking skills.


Now let's examine another possible source of imbalance in the game: the needed equipment!


Equipment prices

Infantry needs good armour and good weapons to be effective. Cavalry needs the same, plus a horse. Archers need a good weapon to be effective, while good (= heavier) armour would actually lower their effectivity again.

Of course the other two classes are slowed down by heavy armour, too, but the effects are nowhere near to the effect to archers.

Currently the most expensive Bow + Arrows cost 16.158 gold. The most expensive polearm is 15.634 gold, the most expensive two hander 18.777 gold, the most expensive sword + shield combo is even 20.856 gold. And in difference to the archers the other classes need medium or heavy armour, while archers do fine with light or even without armour at all!

Cavalry has really a disadvantage compared to infantry, as it needs the same equipment plus a horse, which renders only light cavalry sustainable.

Skills?

Another point, where I really don't dare to make a judgement are the skills. I am not sure if the amount of skills needed for each class is balanced or not, so perhaps one of you could elaborate this. I got the feeling it is pretty fair, but not perfect.

Summary

You can rejoice, we are close to the end of my elaboration. Let me post a last, short summary, which simultaneously represents

the tl;dr - version:

1. There is no (real) rock-paper-siccors-system in cRPG. Real "counters" don't exist in the initial meaning of the word, you only have things that work better or worse against others, but there is no balance in those relations.

2. Different classes can participate in the battle at different degrees (time, possible targets, etc.). Some more, some less.

3. The different classes need a different amount of control inputs, which definitely influences the "difficulty" of a class.

4. Different classes need different budgets for effective equipment. Great source for possible imbalances.

5. Different classes need different amounts of skill points spent. Another source for possible imbalances.


With these statements made my essay is more or less finished. I thought long about it, and I finally decided to bother you with my old alternative suggestion which was meant as alternative for the upkeep system, and again I see some advantages of it, so I will repeat it in a heavily shortened version.

Approach to a solution


Basically you can divide character development into two aspects: skills and equipment. You can use these aspects to represent two axes in a graph:

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Of course character's can't move along those axes endlessly, there are caps. Sooner or later you will reach the maximum equipment possible, and, depending on the cap, the level, too.

With the old cRPG things looked like this:

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The equipment was hard capped, as sooner or later you have farmed all of the best equipment you need for your class. Any further progression since then was made on the horizontal axis, by leveling up. There was some kind of soft cap, but we had many players that crossed it. The bright blue area is the potential a player could reach, and the more far away from (0|0) they are, the bigger the square is they create, the more powerful they are. Of course everyone tried to reach the point at the top right, so ultimatively everyone ended up at the same point.

It looked like this:

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As you can see, the different player (the coloured boxes) were all apporaching the top right corner, and when they reached the hard euipment cap they moved along the skill axis, leveling up their characters. Your either had "perfect" characters, or you were working on one. (the smaller boxes that didn't reach one cap yet).


Then the upkeep patch came. Its biggest difference was, that the hard equipment cap was moved lower and changed to a soft one. Now it was the price of your items, that represented the cap, instead of the mere unexistance of better equipment. But still, things remained more or less the same. Again you first farmed the best possible equipment (determined by the combined price in relation to the effectivity), and then you work on breaking the level cap. Characters of same classes developed the same.

The new potential looks like this:

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Basically like before, with some small changes (lower equipment cap, changed to a soft one).

So again leveling looks like this:

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Again it's the best to try to reach the top right corner. Again you have many similar builds.


Balancing is done by changing item stats, balancing the different classes by their equipment. The only balancing by skills was achieved by changing the difficulty of an item. I think this is where we need to start, as you could also use the skills to balance classes.

Another problem are the item prices, which becomes especially obvious in the case of archers. You can't make bows as expensive as it would be needed, as players would need to long to farm them and thus lose motivation. An important part of the motivation of cRPG is buying and using new items, so we must allow players to constantly "reward" themselves by buying items, while taking care that their usage on the battlefield is always balanced.

The only solution I found for this was to seperate the item price in the shop and the item value on the battlefield. This is why I will start now to use the expressions "price" and "value" with two different meanings deliberately.

The price is what you pay on the webside in the shop while purchasing an item. The value is the amount of gold that's shown in your ingame inventory, with absolutely the same mechanics like in native. If your overall equipment value exceeds your budget, the number will turn red and you can't spawn/spawn without some items. You can call this budget "prosperity" or "wealth" or whatever.

Your wealth is a fix number determined by your level. Every new level your wealth grows a little bit. Additionally we need a hard level cap introduced.

An important new feature would be the ability, to turn both skill and attribute points to wealth points. The relation stays the same, which means 2 budget points = 2 skill points = 1 attribute point.

With this system, the new conditions for character development would look like this:
(Notice that the soft level cap on the right side is a mistake, it's a hard one)

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The maximum development line (it's actually a radius) is created by the simple fact that you can either maximize equipment OR skills, but never both, creating some kind of "quarter circle" around (0|0).

Creating a potential that looks this way:

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(There you see this quarter circle)


Basically players would have the same problem like with the upkeep system: "What is the best equipment I can get for a certain value?", but in difference to the upkeep this value would remain constant, thus making your character development more predictable. If someone wants better equipment he is free to do so, but he will have to pay it with worse skills. With this change, the different characters would hopefully look like this:

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You would have both more possibilities and more variety.

To finally achieve some kind of balancing, I would suggest to remove any penalties of respeccing the characters, and heirloom points should be freely distributable. You could implement some cooldown timer or gold cost to prevent players of testing all builds within an afternoon and losing motivation due to this.

The purpose of this change is having the player base adapt much faster to balance changes, so that you can see within a week where the server population would develop to with the current item stats. Once a good balance is achieved, the changes above get reverted, respeccing costs XP again and heirlooms remain final, as usual.

My idea surely doesn't solve all problems, but at least the effects of Nr. 4 and Nr. 5 (see above, "Summary") get lowered.

I hope I don't get too many "tl;dr", because in fact i don't care who didn't read it. I want you guys to correct me if I said/assumed something wrong, and I want you to think about what I wrote, to decide whether you support it or not, and if not, whether you have an alternative/superior suggestion or not. Feel free to discuss every little point, I will do my best to try to stay open minded. I know ofen enough I behave simple minded, and this can become really tiresome for you, but this time I will really try to accept different opinions and allow people to convince me of their beliefs.  :mrgreen:

WOW

I started to read, and than I scrolled down and got overwhelmed by such a long post. And i scrolled and scrolled but there was no end! Very impressive. Even when I have no idea what you are saying, +1 to your post!!

Title: Re: Basic game imbalances
Post by: Lennu on December 02, 2011, 05:39:06 pm

Did anyone actually read through all that?  :lol:

Title: Re: Basic game imbalances
Post by: Lysander on December 02, 2011, 05:40:57 pm

Quote from: Lennu on December 02, 2011, 05:39:06 pm

Did anyone actually read through all that?  :lol:

No.
Also not the Joker68 guy who wrote this. I think he copied it from anywhere!

Title: Re: Basic game imbalances
Post by: Ylca on December 02, 2011, 07:31:45 pm

This is a great writeup, the only issue i saw (and i might have missed you addressing this as it was a long post) is your assumption about archer equipment value.

Since new upkeep i've played 2h, Thrower, Archer, Shielder, Light Cav, Heavy Cav.

Guess which two were by far my most expensive generations? Archer and HA absolutely molested my wallet to the point i had to sell looms after i was done with 1 gen of HA and cleaned me out after 1.5 gens of Archer. By comparison in almost every other build i make money with the exception of the times i decide to hop on a plated charger. There is already a hardcoded significant disadvantage to being an archer and i feel you should consider this in your future endeavors.

Title: Re: Basic game imbalances
Post by: Paul on December 03, 2011, 09:35:44 am

There is an extra break chance for arrows that increases archer upkeep.

Title: Re: Basic game imbalances
Post by: Lysander on December 03, 2011, 12:31:36 pm

Quote from: Paul on December 03, 2011, 09:35:44 am

There is an extra break chance for arrows that increases archer upkeep.

Are you kidding me??

Title: Re: Basic game imbalances
Post by: Zerran on December 16, 2011, 03:24:40 pm

+1 great idea. Would especially like it because I play light armor + support polearm = cheap so I could focus on attributes/skills  :D

Seriously though, this would be nice. Would let new players play with heavy armor, yet at the same time keep people in tin-can suits from taking 10 hits to kill while 1-shotting everyone. The one thing I don't like is getting rid of looms. Maybe it's just because I'm an rpg fan, but I like working towards something like that. Additionally looms don't give a terribly big bonus, and are technically hard-capped (player has all +3)

It would require a LOT of work though, mostly as far as balancing goes. From the little modding I've done to warband it's pretty easy to add new skills and attributes, the problem would be making all the classes balanced.

Loved the charts/graphs btw, you really put a lot of work into this post!

Finally, I apologize if I misunderstood anything. I'm about to fall asleep on my keyboard.

Title: Re: Basic game imbalances
Post by: Remy on December 16, 2011, 06:03:13 pm

Quote from: Joker86 on November 30, 2011, 09:53:59 pm

I think it's obvious that the chances aren't distributed evenly, and indeed the horse archer can fight more enemies on the battle field, and he can fight them better. This is the first basic imbalance of the game, and I fear this one can never be evened out totally.

Some brief input(from a dirty HA):  :wink:

Shielders are not "good/better chances to win" foe, in a normal battle they are "ignore/comeback later/engage when completely distracted" type of  target.

The same goes for anyone with decent armor or carrying anything beyond the most basic shield.

Furthermore, I find the "better" part to be very subjective. Pikeman and Horse Archers differ significantly in purpose, goals and tactics. Beyond of course the fact that both can do well in a support role and excel against undisciplined cavalry.

Finally, the biggest problem I think with your analysis is that it appears to based on a 1 vs 1 concept, whereas apart from duel mode, it is more important how a class performs in numbers/cohesion with other classes/etc.

Title: Re: Basic game imbalances
Post by: Overdriven on December 16, 2011, 06:25:06 pm

Quote from: Lysander on December 03, 2011, 12:31:36 pm

Are you kidding me??

How did you not know? It's been around for a long time now (4-5 months maybe, if not more). It's why I don't use bodkins on horse back, because 3xbodkins with extra break chance, plus a courser, is crippling for the wallet.

Anyway joker...I don't particularly understand the point of this thread. I read your entire post and I simply wonder, why is there a need for change? I certainly don't see any need. The imbalances you point out aren't really imbalances, certainly not enough to cause any need for over haul of the upkeep system. A lot of what you say is also very unnecessary, biased, and not very well thought out, hidden by the fact that you wrote a huge amount and threw in some rather pointless graphs. Simple examples are your lack of understanding for controls and the difference between controlling each class, your assumption that HA's beat pikemen (which is just dumb in a battle situation) and the fact your budgets are also rather incorrect as well undermines your post.

Finally, your suggested changes really only relate to two of your points, and even then, under the skill set changes you said that they are already pretty fair, and in my opinion, require no drastic changes. Why did you write the entire first part if your suggested changes don't even really affect them? Particularly as that opening half is the least thought out and most biased part.

Also what Remy said ^

I don't mean to criticise quite so heavily, but I just have a lot of issues with what you say and unfortunately I don't have the time to point out every single one.

Title: Re: Basic game imbalances
Post by: Glyph on December 16, 2011, 08:13:42 pm

great post and spent time for the comunity! +1

though what i don't get is that you said that if you get a higher level, you can get more expensive stuff right? and if you are a lower level, you've less wealth points, so equipment of less value, which will translate into high players getting better equipment, which in that case your drawing doesn't really shows what the real scenario would be like. then it would be more of a strait line towards the top-right corner, because the players with high levels(right side) will be able to take expensive equipment because of their high wealth.

please correct me if i'm wrong

thx

Title: Re: Basic game imbalances
Post by: Kaoklai on December 17, 2011, 01:39:52 am

While people are busy jizzing themselves over OP's presentation and conciliatory tone, I thought the whole thing reeked of the sort of armchair game-design, that, if followed, would destroy the game.  I would almost be afraid of the overwhelming support it has received if I didn't have faith that it will mostly be ignored by the developers, who, despite being lazy, corrupt eurotrash, are intelligent enough to recognize garbage ideas when they see them. 

You couch your argument in numerical terms that you arrived at with some very basic arithmetic, but the original values were assigned through an individual's arbitrary judgment.  Your methodology is so loosely defined that the results are meaningless.  It is just your opinion being paraded around with the facade of real analysis. 

As others have noted, you mostly consider one vs one situations and do not take the holistic approach to balance required in a predominantly team-based game. 

Your whom can attack who key is simply ridiculous.  When archers and cavalry die to melee infantry, it isn't because they "allowed" themselves to be killed.  This is borderline insulting to infantry. 

This doesn't make any sense, "Another important point is, what player THINK is easier. It doesn't matter how it is in reality, but most players should be afraid of manual blocking, and most of them should think it's easier to become a master archer with good aiming rather than a master infantryman with good blocking skills."

Your proposed equipment system does not promote player diversity, but restricts it.  Making a tradeoff between skill/attributes and "budget" means that everyone who chooses to trade the same amount (every "veteran warrior" infantry for example) will have similar gear because your balance would entail similar items having similar budget requirements.  Simply put, you are restricting the item pool for each build and therefore users of each build will be more alike.  You're just creating arbitrary build divisions that reinforce similarities within themselves, and then pointing to the multiple builds you created unnecessarily and yelling diversity.  Different builds and loadouts already occur organically. 

Furthermore, you erroneously conflate equipment effectiveness with price.  Not explicitly, as I'm sure you'll strenuously deny, but that is the story your graphs tell, while the "best" equipment is only what people prefer to use and personal preferences vary widely, even with identical character builds. 

I disagree with your methodology, pretty much everything it tries to prove, and your "solutions."  I hope people will actually read your post and come to their own conclusions instead of being dazzled by numbers and graphs. 

Title: Re: Basic game imbalances
Post by: Bobthehero on December 17, 2011, 01:58:03 am

There was veteran nobles too.

And nobles were trained in the art of war.

And veteran soldiers tend to loot equipement.

Title: Re: Basic game imbalances
Post by: Joker86 on December 17, 2011, 04:35:16 am

Okay, this is WAY too much to answer everything, even by making a "quote barrage post", so I will try to shortly answer a few points which are either important or simply quick to answer  :wink:

- My solution doesn't exclude the use of heirlooms. The entire retiring mechanics would still work with it.

- Some of you complain about the fact that I was looking at 1 on 1 situations only. And you are right, that's exactly what I did. I understand that you can't compare the situation on a duel server with the situation on the battlefield. But once a player decides to fight another one, it is something very SIMILAR to a 1 on 1 fight, and there WILL be a difference between an archer and a pikeman if both decide to attack an enemy horse archer. And there will also be a difference for a 1hd+shield infantry in being attacked by an archer and being attacked by a 2hd infantry. The fact, that there is a battle going on around them doesn't change a lot. Especially, as teamplay on public servers is close to not existant, so that it would be plain retarded to rely on your teammates.

I seriously hope we agree that the average archer is dangerous to "more" enemies than the average pikeman. And the other way round, most of the time the pikeman has more dangerous enemies than the archer has. (Especially if latter is sitting on a rooftop for almost the entire round, and only has to come down because a) noone else from his team is on the ground or b) he runs out of arrows *cough cough*)

Which leads to the idea that an archer could have a slightly higher "value" for the team than a pikeman. Like 1.1 and 0.9. Sure, together they again could have an average value of 1, but this doesn't say the classes are balanced. I hope you know what I want to say.

On a battlefield there are so many situations you can imagine, that you can always argument against a certain "relation" of classes to each other.

All I wanted to do is to take a look at the "life" of every class, and to see how much "fun" it is. And there are really a lot of factors, e.g. the effectivity of the class, the time you can engage enemies actively, your defensive capabilities against certain enemies, the average kills you score, the difficulty of mastering the class, how often your class decides a round, how flexible you are in what you do, how independant from certain maps you are, how many choices you got in creating an effective build of this class or at least a hybrid, in short: how well most of your rounds go.

If you combine all these factors and everything else that comes into your mind to a value that we could call "fun", I think we wouldn't receive the same value for all classes. Which, in my eyes is unfair, and should be taken into account as much and as far as possible. (Some basic imbalances never will be fixed, at one point you have to stop and just accept what the middle ages left for the game)

- I got accused of limiting several builds to several setups of equipment. The mechanics that were mentioned, that similar builds with similar budgets would also have similar equipment are perfectly right. The big difference is, that there would be more different builds in general, because with the current system everybody has the same budget for equipment, and thus the same "budget" for skills. Which leads to more similar builds for similar classes. Just take a look at most of the 2hd infantry. Most of the top players in this class use a Danish or German great sword, a good heavy armour (only a bit ligther than the first plate armour) and a good helmet (often enough a closed one). And most of them will have similar strength/agility-relations and thus similar skills.

If my system would apply for them, you would have players with the same equipment like before, but they would have to pay it with a few skill points, thus being "weaker". Other players would keep the skills they had before, but would have to limit themselves on lighter armour or cheaper weapons. Yes, both the "rich noobs" and the "poor veterans" would use similar equipment and skills within their "kind", but all in all you would have MORE variety than before.

I hope I could express what I want to say.  :?

Title: Re: Basic game imbalances
Post by: Remy on December 17, 2011, 04:28:49 pm

Quote from: Joker86 on December 17, 2011, 04:35:16 am

- Some of you complain about the fact that I was looking at 1 on 1 situations only. And you are right, that's exactly what I did. I understand that you can't compare the situation on a duel server with the situation on the battlefield. But once a player decides to fight another one, it is something very SIMILAR to a 1 on 1 fight, and there WILL be a difference between an archer and a pikeman if both decide to attack an enemy horse archer. And there will also be a difference for a 1hd+shield infantry in being attacked by an archer and being attacked by a 2hd infantry. The fact, that there is a battle going on around them doesn't change a lot. Especially, as teamplay on public servers is close to not existant, so that it would be plain retarded to rely on your teammates.

I disagree completely with this portion.

The fact that there is a battle occurring does change everything. Suddenly you have to consider other players, classes, etc. It is a completely different dynamic from a rather static one vs one.

Teamplay on a grandscale does not always occur on a public server but there is always small group/squad teamwork. Where two players will naturally work together against a common foe.

Title: Re: Basic game imbalances
Post by: Glyph on December 17, 2011, 04:47:31 pm

joxer, could you take a look at my question?


thx

Title: Re: Basic game imbalances
Post by: Joker86 on December 17, 2011, 06:51:28 pm

Quote from: Berethorn on December 16, 2011, 08:13:42 pm

great post and spent time for the comunity! +1

though what i don't get is that you said that if you get a higher level, you can get more expensive stuff right? and if you are a lower level, you've less wealth points, so equipment of less value, which will translate into high players getting better equipment, which in that case your drawing doesn't really shows what the real scenario would be like. then it would be more of a strait line towards the top-right corner, because the players with high levels(right side) will be able to take expensive equipment because of their high wealth.

please correct me if i'm wrong

thx

You are right about this assumption, but only as far as both players are playing the same build.

I will repost the graphic so it's easier for me to explain:

(click to show/hide)

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Both players will move along the same "diagonal" (which is their personal build diagonal, determined by their combination of equipment and skills), so that the higher level character will be better in both skills and equipment. But as soon as he reaches the line of the quarter circle, the maximum potential, he must stop, and the lower level player will sooner or later reach him. (Examples: the red and the green squares, or the grey and the brown squares (more or less, the latter two are not exactly on one diagonal, but that's natural, as on one point you level one aspect, at the other point you level the other one, it rather goes up like a "snake"))

If a player of a high level decides to use expensive equipment, he will have lower skills, which would be represented by the pink square. The other extreme would be to go for skills with cheaper equipment, looking like the yellow square.

The point is: not everyone who has a higher level has (considerably) more wealth than someone on a lower level (compare the yellow and the red square, for example). Of course the higher level player has some more advantages in general, that's why you want to level up, but in the end it's always a question of the two builds you are using.

I hope this answers your question. If not, please rephrase it, so I can have another try  :wink:

Title: Re: Basic game imbalances
Post by: Glyph on December 18, 2011, 10:21:06 am

Quote from: Joker86 on December 17, 2011, 06:51:28 pm

You are right about this assumption, but only as far as both players are playing the same build.

I will repost the graphic so it's easier for me to explain:

(click to show/hide)

visitors can't see pics , please register or login

Both players will move along the same "diagonal" (which is their personal build diagonal, determined by their combination of equipment and skills), so that the higher level character will be better in both skills and equipment. But as soon as he reaches the line of the quarter circle, the maximum potential, he must stop, and the lower level player will sooner or later reach him. (Examples: the red and the green squares, or the grey and the brown squares (more or less, the latter two are not exactly on one diagonal, but that's natural, as on one point you level one aspect, at the other point you level the other one, it rather goes up like a "snake"))

If a player of a high level decides to use expensive equipment, he will have lower skills, which would be represented by the pink square. The other extreme would be to go for skills with cheaper equipment, looking like the yellow square.

The point is: not everyone who has a higher level has (considerably) more wealth than someone on a lower level (compare the yellow and the red square, for example). Of course the higher level player has some more advantages in general, that's why you want to level up, but in the end it's always a question of the two builds you are using.

I hope this answers your question. If not, please rephrase it, so I can have another try  :wink:

so skill and would both cost wealth points? so you have to find a balance for you to make it work?

thx for posting btw

Title: Re: Basic game imbalances
Post by: Joker86 on December 18, 2011, 02:09:48 pm

I think you forgot a word between "and would", but I suppose it's "equipment"?

Basically: yes. You have a basic item value budget, that raises every level, but it's only enough for the most basic equipment. If you want the better stuff you must spend a few skill points in raising this budget further. So you can actually say that skills "cost" wealth points. (By increasing skills you can't increase wealth points any more and vice versa)

Title: Re: Basic game imbalances
Post by: Glyph on December 18, 2011, 05:32:09 pm

Quote from: Joker86 on December 18, 2011, 02:09:48 pm

I think you forgot a word between "and would", but I suppose it's "equipment"?

Basically: yes. You have a basic item value budget, that raises every level, but it's only enough for the most basic equipment. If you want the better stuff you must spend a few skill points in raising this budget further. So you can actually say that skills "cost" wealth points. (By increasing skills you can't increase wealth points any more and vice versa)

owww, now i get it thx

Title: Re: Basic game imbalances
Post by: Bobthehero on December 18, 2011, 09:11:18 pm

Very boring system IMO and it will go even farther from being to customize your character.

Title: Re: Basic game imbalances
Post by: Glyph on December 19, 2011, 10:48:15 am

Quote from: Bobthehero on December 18, 2011, 09:11:18 pm

Very boring system IMO and it will go even farther from being to customize your character.

it may reduce the capebilety of choosing armor and skills, but people will use more variation then they will now, because if it's possible to get to the topright corner, you will, and now you have more sets to choose from without sucking really hard.

Title: Re: Basic game imbalances
Post by: Zerran on December 19, 2011, 08:06:00 pm

Been thinking on this a bit more, and came up with 2 similar ideas.

1. This idea works on the fact that most of the imbalances in equipment are caused by armor, rather than the weapon (That is, generally having a higher end weapon gives you less of an advantage than higher end armor). So, add a "Heavy Armor" skill that requires 3 str per point. It would work as an additional requirement to just str to wear the item. For example, Gothic Plate might take 15 strength (as it does now) and additionally 5 or so points of the Heavy Armor skill (I realize that the strength wouldn't be necessary in this case, but in the case of a lower tier, but still high end armor, such as Coat of Plates, which takes 13 strength, might only take 2 points of the Heavy Armor skill.)

This would essentially reduce the number of skill points player who want to wear heavy armors have, and does so in a fairly realistic way. Due to this, they would have to choose between having less health, speed, damage, etc. It would also have no real effect on Archers, who really don't need any nerfs like this, and while it would effect heavy cav, it would do so in a less drastic way than making them put in enough points to afford their already very costly horse.

2. This idea works on the fact that even with enough protection, you're still a sitting duck if you can't move at more than a crawl. Basically, increase how much weight reduces wpf and movement speed pretty drastically above a certain point using a logarithmically scaled multiplier, starting at weight 10-15, and nearing it's peak at around 30-40 or so. So, for example someone with a weight under 10-15 or so would see no change, but someone around 30-40 weight (heavy armor all around) wouldn't be able to move at more than a walking pace, and would have a HUGE wpf penalty.

Now before you stab me for trying to make heavy armor worthless, this effect could be counteracted by using a skill. This skill would require 3 str per point, and would reduce this extra multiplier by a certain amount (If the skill is high enough that it reduces the multiplier to the point that the character would be less encumbered than before, the skill caps out and stops helping more) So, like idea 1, if a character wants to use heavier armor and not be basically useless they need to put points into this skill; and, once again, they would need to sacrifice damage, agility, health, etc, in order to do so.

This idea doesn't really do anything about cav, and might be harder to implement, but I still posted it because I'm not sure it's possible to have 2 requirements on armor (i.e strength and Heavy Armor skill).

Title: Re: Basic game imbalances
Post by: karasu on December 19, 2011, 08:35:08 pm

tl:dr  my signature.